Spain Intra-Company Transfer Visa: Moving an Employee Within Your Group

Short answer: the Spain intra-company transfer visa lets a company outside the EU send one of its own people to a Spanish entity of the same group. The employee must be a manager, a specialist or a graduate trainee, and must have worked for the group for at least three months before the move. The Spanish entity files the permit online with the UGE, the unit for large companies in the Ministry of Inclusion. The law gives the UGE 20 days to decide, and if it says nothing in that time the permit counts as granted. Managers and specialists can stay up to three years, trainees one.

HR teams usually ask us one thing first: do we transfer this person, or hire them in Spain? The table answers that in a minute.

ICT permit or highly qualified permit?

You may see €42,000 to €45,000 a year quoted online as the salary for this permit. That figure sits just above the highly qualified permit floor (€41,356.36 in 2026), which does not apply to transfers. The same goes for “3 to 9 months” with the group: the EU directive lets each country set between 3 and 12 months for managers and specialists, and Spain set 3. The UGE does ask for the Spanish salary in the transfer letter, with the job and the collective agreement that applies.

The practical test is the contract. If the person stays on the group’s books abroad and the move is an assignment, it is a transfer. If the Spanish company signs them up and pays them, it is a local hire, and the ICT permit is the wrong file.

Who qualifies: manager, specialist or trainee

Article 73 of Law 14/2013 sets out who can be moved, and the definitions are narrower than most guides suggest:

• Manager: someone whose job includes running the company, or a department or subdivision of it.
• Specialist: someone with specialised knowledge of the entity’s activities, techniques or management.
• Trainee: a university graduate sent to Spain to learn the entity’s techniques or methods, and paid for it. An unpaid placement does not qualify.

On top of the role, four conditions apply to every transfer:

• The Spanish entity, and where relevant the group, has a real business activity.
• The employee holds a higher education degree, or can show at least three years of professional experience at an equivalent level.
• The employee has worked for one or more companies of the group for at least three months before the transfer, without a break.
• The company documents the transfer itself: the assignment letter, the role, the duration and the reason.

The general requirements of article 62 apply as well. The employee must be over 18, must not be in Spain irregularly, needs a clean criminal record for the last two years in every country of residence plus a signed statement covering five years, health insurance with a company authorised in Spain, enough means for the family, and the government fee paid.

How the Spain intra-company transfer visa works, step by step

1. The Spanish entity files online with the UGE. Everything goes through the Ministry’s electronic office, and the family can file at the same time.
2. The UGE decides within 20 days of the electronic filing. Silence counts as approval under article 76.1, and a refusal can be appealed to a higher authority.
3. The employee applies for the visa at the Spanish consulate where they live. The consulate has 10 working days to decide (article 75.5). The visa is valid for one year, or for the length of the permit if shorter.
4. The employee travels and gets the residence card (TIE) if the permit runs longer than six months. During the first six months the passport is enough to register with Spanish Social Security (article 76.5).

If the employee is already in Spain legally, for example on a business trip, the application can be filed from here. Filing extends their current stay until the UGE decides (article 76.1), so they do not have to fly home to collect a visa.

The file we prepare for the UGE usually contains:

• Proof of the group link between the sending company and the Spanish entity (ownership chart, registry extracts)
• Proof that both have real activity (accounts, tax filings, registrations)
• The assignment letter: role, duties, duration, salary and who pays it
• Proof of at least three months’ continuous work for the group (contract, payslips)
• The employee’s degree, or evidence of three years’ equivalent experience
• Passport and criminal record certificates, apostilled and translated
• Health insurance and proof of Social Security coverage (see below)

Documents issued abroad need an apostille or legalisation and a sworn translation into Spanish. Our team arranges both, so HR only has to collect the originals.

EU ICT permit or national transfer permit

Spain issues the transfer permit in two versions, and choosing the wrong one is a common reason for delay.

• ICT UE permit. For managers, specialists and trainees moved from a company outside the EU to its Spanish entity. Maximum three years for managers and specialists, one for trainees. It carries the right to work in other EU countries under the EU Intra-Corporate Transfer Directive (2014/66/EU).
• National transfer permit. For everything else: for example staff sent to carry out a service contract between a foreign and a Spanish company, independent professionals, or an employee who has used up the maximum of the ICT UE permit. It lasts three years, or the length of the transfer if shorter (article 73.3.b).

The national permit is what keeps a long assignment going after year three. Plan it before the ICT UE permit expires, not after.

Sending the same employee to other EU countries

A Spanish ICT UE permit travels. The holder can enter, live and work in other EU member states after notifying or applying to that country, under its own rules for the ICT Directive. Stays of up to 90 days in any 180 count as short-term mobility, and most countries ask for a notification at most. Longer stays fall under long-term mobility, which many countries handle with a permit application. Denmark and Ireland do not apply the Directive.

It works the other way too. A group entity in another EU country can send an employee who holds that country’s ICT permit to Spain, after notifying the UGE. Spain’s Directorate-General for Migration can object within 20 days, for example if the maximum length has run out or the documents are false. If it objects, the first country must take the employee and family back without further formalities.

Moving several people: the group registration with the UGE

A group that moves people to Spain regularly can register with the UGE and file on a planned quota (article 74). The registration lasts three years and can be renewed. While registered, the company does not have to prove, with each application, the real activity of the group, the employee’s qualification or the three months in the group. The Administration can still check those points at any time, so the documents have to exist and be up to date.

Groups sanctioned for a serious or very serious immigration offence in the previous three years, or that failed an earlier check, cannot use this route. Any change in the company’s situation has to be reported to the UGE within 30 days, or the registration lapses (article 76.4).

Family of the transferee

The spouse or unmarried partner, children under 18, older children who still depend on the employee financially, and dependent parents can apply with the employee, at the same time or later (article 62.4). When they file together, the UGE decides all the applications at once, so nobody waits for a second decision.

Each family member has to meet the general requirements, including health insurance and a clean record for adults. Article 19.6 of the EU ICT Directive gives family members of an ICT UE holder the right to work, and the EU Immigration Portal page for Spain confirms that working-age relatives can work here. We check how the family’s resolution is worded in each file, because that decides how the spouse can start working.

Payroll, Social Security and the Beckham Law

Three separate questions, and each one needs its own answer before the transfer starts.

Social Security. Since October 2024 the UGE has asked ICT applications for real proof of Social Security coverage, for first permits and renewals. A letter from the host company promising to register the employee later is no longer accepted. If the home country has a Social Security agreement with Spain, the usual proof is the certificate of coverage from the home system. The United States has one, and the United Kingdom is covered by the Social Security rules of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Without an agreement, the employee is registered in Spain, and the group may end up paying contributions in two countries.

Payroll. The employee can stay on the home payroll or move to a Spanish one. That choice affects Social Security, withholding and the cost to the group, so we look at it with your payroll team before the filing, not after the first payslip.

Tax. An employee who becomes tax resident in Spain after a transfer ordered by the employer can opt for the special regime for inbound workers in article 93 of the Personal Income Tax Law, known as the Beckham Law. Employment income up to €600,000 a year is taxed at 24%. It is not automatic. The option has to be filed within six months of the start date shown in the Spanish Social Security registration or, if the employee stays on the home system, in the certificate of coverage. The employee must not have been tax resident in Spain in the previous five years, and the group has to issue an assignment letter ordering the move. Our tax advisors handle the election as part of the move.

Renewal, and staying after the transfer

The permit can be renewed for periods of two years while the conditions that justified it still hold (article 76.3). An ICT UE permit cannot run past its maximum length, though, so from that point the employee continues on the national transfer permit. Filing the renewal extends the current permit until the UGE decides. A renewal filed within 90 days after expiry also keeps the permit alive, though a fine can follow, so file before the end date.

When the transfer becomes permanent, the usual route is a change to a local contract under the highly qualified permit, or the Blue Card if the salary and degree fit. After five years of continuous legal residence, the employee can apply for long-term residence.

How many ICT permits does Spain grant?

Few. Spain issued 689 EU intra-corporate transfer permits in 2025, down from 751 in 2024 and 1,109 in 2023, and renewed 244. China (150), Mexico (112) and India (99) led, followed by Brazil (66) and Japan (39). The United States accounted for 32 and the United Kingdom for 21. It is a specialist route, and files go wrong on small details. Source: Eurostat, September 2026.

Our own records point the same way: the transfer permit is one of the routes we are asked about least, and almost always by a company rather than an individual. That is why this page talks to HR.

ICT permit questions from HR teams